Snails, be gone!

One of the many blessings of living on the northern end of the Blackall Range is the lack of slugs and snails. Hence they are a problem we rarely think about, but the view of one of our enormous carnivorous (they don’t eat plants) snails this week reminded us.

Do keep an eye open for these destructive creatures, and if necessary sprinkle round some pellets such as Baysol or Blitzem to get rid of them. These products contain pet deterrent, but we would still suggest you take that extra step and put the pellets behind fence posts or inside a narrow-necked jar or other difficult-for-pets-and-birds to access spot.

If snails and slugs are busy in your vegie patch, run a trail of sawdust around the vulnerable plants, those voracious pests won’t crawl over that.

If your garden patch is in a good sunny situation, there are plenty of vegetable plants and seeds available for planting at this time of year. For instance, you can still plant a crop of broad beans if you’re quick, and they’re so handy for both the pods and the beans.

Both climbing and dwarf beans and peas can be planted this month, and spring onions will do well planted now. In fact, there are few vegetables that can’t or shouldn’t be planted now, and the short list includes cauliflowers, celery, kolhrabi, swedes and turnips, so go for it.

Don’t neglect preparing the bed well prior to planting, and by far the best advice we can give you in this direction is to check in your Yates Garden Guide, where you’ll get the best information you can have on each type of vegetable, and for that matter, flowers, bulbs and herbs, and good general information on almost any part of your garden.

We know many people who rely almost totally on this best seller, and we are included in that list. You’ll find the boxed hints very handy too. One that caught my eye recently was submitted by Frances Hutchison, a gardening author, who suggests: “Sow sunflowers as early as possible, then when they are about 60cm tall, sow two or three seeds of scarlet runner beans at the foot of each sunflower. By the time the beans climb upwards, the sunflowers are strong enough to support them.”

What a novel idea!

Herbs will be looking for some complete plant food in the coming weeks, so our advice is to sprinkle some Yates Thrive All Purpose around each plant and water well immediately.

Eye-catching climbers

AT this time of year one of the most asked questions we get is about the brilliant orange creeper seen in so many places. Orange Trumpet Creeper, Golden Shower and Pyrostegia venusta are the names by which this beauty is known. Evergreen in our part of the world, it grows rapidly, clinging by tendrils to anything you provide. The flowers appear from autumn through winter, and it is a waterwise plant only needing a good watering in autumn and winter to encourage the flowers.